Wife-beating case dismissed against ex-prosecutor; she boasted on tape she’d frame him

The wife of a former Albany County prosecutor admitted on secretly taped recordings that she planned to frame him for a vicious beating to force him out of their home.

The explosive revelations surfaced Thursday as the assault case against William Conboy III was tossed in City Court in Albany. All charges were dropped after his now-estranged wife — the legislative director for state Sen. Neil Breslin — refused to appear at the first day of his trial.

His attorney, Cheryl Coleman, highlighted the recordings in court before the case was officially dismissed. They illustrate a divorce and custody battle so bitter and heated William Conboy resorted to clandestinely audio-taping his spouse — and it may have saved him from a conviction and possible loss of his law license.

“I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. If you are not out tonight with all of your [expletive] I will call the Albany Police Department and say that you beat me and get an order of protection against you,” Kelly Conboy, 33, can be heard saying on an April 2011 recording obtained by the Times Union.

William Conboy, 35, a former assistant district attorney most recently under District Attorney David Soares, was charged with attacking his wife at 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 30, 2011, inside the couple’s home on Meadow Lane. Kelly Conboy alleged her husband kicked and choked her and pushed her to the ground, kicking her in the throat with a rubber-soled boot and dragging the boot from her throat to her chest, according to court papers filed in City Court.

Her husband — whose father, William Conboy II, served as the county attorney and as counsel to the Legislature’s Democratic majority — was ready with a recording device when he later spoke with his wife.

“You’re going to make something up that I hit you,” Conboy asked during the April 2011 exchange.

Kelly Conboy replied, “Yeah, without a doubt.”

“You’re going to make something up that I hit you?” Conboy asked during the April 2011 exchange.

Kelly Conboy replied, “Yeah, without a doubt.”

Conboy asked, “Why would you do that Kel?”

“Why would I do that? To get you the [expletive] out of the house!” she screamed back.

The couple’s baby daughter can be heard crying in the background. Meanwhile, they still share the same home.